Never come in the way of your child’s Life choices

When your child makes an unconventional choice, celebrate, rather than worry!

Yesterday we met a gentleman who said he was concerned that his son, after his 12^th grade, wanted to pursue a career in art. What the man was perplexed about was that his child had never “demonstrated artistic talent” and yet he wanted to join a foundational undergrad program in art and follow it up with a two-year Master’s degree at some point.

I asked the gentleman what exactly was his concern.

He replied: “I wanted my son to have a basic qualification before he embarked on a career in art.”

By basic, what the man really meant is, doing a conventional degree in medicine, engineering, pure sciences, math, law or literature and such. And why does such a basic qualification matter? Because, as popular perception defines it, starting career plans in these fields are more stable and income, earning a living, doesn’t pose a challenge.  

But what about doing what you love doing? What about passion?

“Well,” said the man, “Passion won’t go anywhere. You can always pursue passion later on in Life after you earn some money and save enough to last your lifetime!”

The gentleman is not alone. This is how most of the world thinks, works and lives. A majority of the people believe Life must and will progress linearly. Which is you finish school, go through college, get a job, earn an income, raise a family, build a house, put your kids through school and college, retire and post-retirement you try to follow your bliss – health and time (on the planet) permitting – and, eventually, you die. Even assuming that this linear progression and its attendant monotony is sufferable, there is no guarantee that anyone’s Life progresses along this straight path. A health challenge here, a relationship issue there, a career low or a fundamental skills issue (because you have opted to do something only because it pays you and not because you love doing it) – all this and more makes your Life path look like an ECG reading, often even treacherous to survive! So, after battling Life’s ups and downs, when you finally have reached a point when you can afford to go do what you love doing, you are either too exhausted and Life-weary or you just have run out of time! 

Now, this perspective is not just about the career choices that your child may make. It is the best way forward for you – for your own inner peace – for all your child’s Life choices.

A fundamental principle of good, mature, intelligent parenting is to not try to live the lives of your kids. Simply, don’t come in their way. Don’t try to protect them. Yes, it is a natural tendency to tell them what you believe they must be doing. But say it suggestively and be done with it. Don’t impose your views. Don’t sweat over them. Don’t worry for them. Remember that they are individuals in their own right. They have an independent, intelligent mind – after all, they are your children! So, they want to go out into the big, bountiful world and experiment. They have a right to do what they love doing. And we must never come in their way.

What is the worst that can happen to your child if your child’s choice – of career or relationship or whatever – doesn’t work out? Critically time would have been lost during the tenure of the “experiment”. But how can you ever compute the value of the learning the experience will give your child? The experience of immersing in what she or he loves doing, the experience of selling a value proposition to the world, the experience of being rejected, the experience of thinking out of the box, the experience of stumbling, struggling, falling and standing up again. And how can you even put a value to whatever is making your child happy?

Yes, if a child is embracing a ruinous habit or when, for whatever reason, the child is straying on the wrong side of law or going against the principles of humanity, it is your duty as a parent to stand up and red flag that moment. But again, there are no guarantees that you will be heard or that your sane counsel will prevail. So, we come back to the same principle – suggest, advice and be done with it. Remember, in such cases, when you are not heard, you have not failed. It is just that your child’s learning curve is steeper!

I believe we can give our children only two things – roots, foundational values, on how Life can and must be lived and wings, freedom, so they can fly away. Why would you want to keep your child entrapped in your shadow? Why would you not let her or him just be, let her or him free, to fly away and touch the sky?

5 minutes is all it takes – to being happy doing what you love doing

Happiness cannot be pursued. It has to be found. And you will find it, here and now, if you remove all the conditions in your Life that are making you unhappy. When those conditions disappear, happiness appears. It is as simple as that!

But how do you leave a lucrative job, that comforts you with security, gives you a societal edge and take up something you love no doubt, but is hardly likely to reward you financially? This is where intelligent living comes in. You start a journey of a thousand miles, by taking the first step.

And that first step is to invest just 5 minutes a day doing what you love doing. One of the principal reasons people don’t switch to doing what they love doing is because they are too caught up doing things all day that they loathe doing! But 5 minutes is not a bad deal. However busy you are running your rat race, you can take a 5-minute-break and that shouldn’t hurt anyone, least of all you. In those 5 minutes, do what you love doing __ reading, writing, painting, composing music, researching, cooking, whatever! You will discover a rare peace in you in those 5 precious minutes. You will want those 5 minutes to never end. So, extend the tenure of that daily activity by 5 more minutes – daily! Keep feeling joyful and keep extending the tenure as you graduate through this experience and exercise! Soon, in about a quarter, you will have created a daily window of your own ‘Happy Hour’!

Imagine from being frustrated with your Life, bemoaning the lack of joy in what you were doing, you have a full ‘Happy Hour’ daily to do what you love doing! And that’s 30 ‘Happy Hours’ in a month. If you are an artist, you could complete a masterpiece in that time. And if you are a writer you could perhaps complete a chapter of your book in that time!

If you are smart, as all people usually are, you may look at how many ‘Happy Hours’, over how many years, will you need to make that career switch from being a highly-paid unhappy professional to being a well-earning, happy individual. And once you know your math, you simply go after the opportunity – 5 minutes is all it takes! 

Live for your inner joy!

Pay attention to what Confucius had to say, “Choose a job you love, and you will never have to work a day in your Life.”

So, pause. Stop rushing. Know that in Life, you really have to choose only between two things: do what you love or love what you do. When you do neither is when you grieve, you struggle and you labor through each day. Please awaken to this reality that you and I have not been created to slog, to earn a living and to pine for a Life in the future. We have been created to enjoy this Lifetime and have been endowed with all that we need for this celebration called Life. We are perfect creations in our own, unique ways.

Roman Opalka was a French-born Polish painter who passed away in 2011, at 79. His claim to fame: something bizzarre from a layman's point of view. In 1965, in his studio in Warsaw, Opałka began painting a process of counting – from one to infinity. Starting in the top left-hand corner of the canvas and finishing in the bottom right-hand corner, the tiny numbers were painted in horizontal rows. Each new canvas, which the artist called a 'detail', took up counting where the last left off. Each 'detail' is the same size (196 x 135 cm), the dimension of his studio door in Warsaw. All details have the same title, "1965 / 1 – ∞"; the concept had no end, and the artist pledged his Life to its execution: “All my work is a single thing, the description from number one to infinity. A single thing, a single Life.” Typically he would paint around 400 figures a day. Brush and paint never varied. His figures were roughly a centimetre tall, most made with two deliberate strokes of the brush, and allowed to fade away as his paint ran out. Over the years there were changes to the ritual. In Opałka's first details he painted white numbers onto a black background. In 1968 he changed to a grey background ‘because it's not a symbolic color, nor an emotional one’, and in 1972 he decided he would gradually lighten this grey background by adding 1 per cent more white to the ground with each passing ‘detail’. He expected to be painting virtually in white on white by the time he reached 7 777 777: “My objective is to get up to the white on white and still be alive.'” He never got to that number. But what the heck, he lived a full Life doing what he loved doing!

The reason why we don't often make the right choice to only do what we love doing is because we relate to reference points other than ourselves. Oh, what will the world say if I just painted numbers? What will I do for an income? What will happen if 10 years from now I don't like what I have chosen? Instead of torturing yourself with external reference points, instead of dying every moment that you live, live for yourself, for your inner joy! This is what they call bliss! And it’s inside you. And it is waiting for you to anchor within. Go find your bliss, start loving it and then __ you will never have to work again! 

There’s a lot of Life left after a crisis; believe me, a lot of Life!

Often when in the throes of a crisis, we think we cannot go on. We don’t see a way out of whatever we are faced with. And we think it’s all over. We want to give up. But just remember this – failure or defeat is temporary, it is giving up which is final!

On Sunday, I was in a conversation with the world-famous pianist Anil Srinivasan. This was part of a monthly Event Series I curate called “The Bliss Catchers” which is hosted by Odyssey, Chennai’s most happening bookstore. The Series celebrates people who have had the courage to let go of “safe and secure” careers to follow their bliss, to go do what they love doing.

Anil Srinivasan and AVIS Viswanathan
at "The Bliss Catchers"
Odyssey, Adyar

Over the course of our conversation, Anil shared his story of how he found and followed his bliss. Anil’s heart was always in the piano – he started playing it when he was just three years old; in fact, the piano is his Life. But family circumstances (a grave financial crisis had made it mandatory for him to pursue a career option that would be immediately economically viable and rewarding) and peer pressure forced him in the direction of an MBA at a US University. He followed that up with attempting a PhD at Columbia. But at one time, what he describes as his lowest phase, the PhD was just not happening. He had huge educational loans to repay. He had no money. And his academic career was going nowhere.

One day, Anil, out of sheer desperation and depression, just blacked out. “I was going to a friend’s place in a cab in New York. But I just lost track of what I was doing. I did not know where I was or where I was headed. When the cab reached the destination, I told the cabbie I had no money to pay him. He kind of made out that I was losing it. So, he said that it was okay, he waived the fare, but he also urged me to take care of myself. I got down from the cab and I just slumped on the stoop in front of my friend’s apartment. I was still clueless of who I was, what I was doing or who I had come to meet. So I simply sat there and spent much of the night there,” recalled Anil. Later that week, Mandolin U.Srinivas (1969~2014), who was a good friend of Anil, called him. Srinivas was performing at Burlington (on the US-Canada border, in Vermont) and wanted to just say hello to his friend. From Anil’s depressive tone, Srinivas surmised that Anil needed help. Urgently. So, Srinivas rushed to Anil’s apartment in New York the next morning and urged Anil to take a walk along with him. The two of them walked along the Hudson for over an hour. Anil says that Srinivas was certain that Anil needed help. But more important Srinivas felt that Anil must play his piano. Immediately. “‘How long ago is it since you played the piano?’ Srinivas asked me. I had no answer. I had forgotten when I had played the piano last. That was how far removed I was from my beloved piano and my music,” Anil told me and the other guests at “The Bliss Catchers” Event. As it turns out, Srinivas took Anil back to his apartment and encouraged him to play. Anil just followed Srinivas’ suggestions without protest. In just a few hours Anil was playing beautifully, enjoying himself and was feeling “totally alive”. “Srinivas re-infused the gift of Life, my music, back in me,” Anil reminisced, even as a tear dropped from his eye. “I can’t believe Srinivas is no more,” he added.

So, that’s how bad things really were for Anil Srinivasan – someone who, as much of the music world believes, is the finest pianist India has ever produced. Can you believe it? One of India’s best musicians was beaten by Life, was depressed and defeated just 15 years ago? And look at him today – he’s living the Life he truly wanted to live, he’s enjoying his music and he’s making music that everyone loves to hear. He’s traveling the world and making people realize that the piano is not just a Western classical instrument but one where it is possible to make any kind of music – from Carnatic to kuthu to Bollywood – if you play it from your soul!

Anil’s story teaches us, yet again, something very, very important. It is the most significant lesson you will ever need to learn about living intelligently – that Life’s darkest moments must be faced. And no matter how dark it is, no matter how hopeless it is, every storm will pass one day. All you must believe, when you are feeling down and out, done in by Life, people, events and circumstances, is that there is a lot of Life still left, after each crisis.

It is possible to discover newer ways of following and living your bliss

Life is never a black and white saga in that sense. It is never only this or that.

There can be various permutations and combinations of this and that if you are a bit creative while still retaining the focus. Learn to discover newer ways of living in bliss. Indeed, when we make joy and service the focal point of our lives, we will find newer means of encountering and staying blissful.

Olivier Roellinger
Picture Courtesy: Internet

Master Chef Olivier Roellinger retired from his own three-star Michelin restaurant in 2010 owing to health problems. His love is food and ostensibly his must have been a painful decision to make when he had to exit a line that gave him joy, fame and money. But in less than six months he found a way to follow his bliss by setting up a chain of spice boutiques called Epices Roellinger which doesn't have the stresses of running a fine-dining place but has the potential to reach a far greater number of people. While his boutiques stock and sell the most exotic varieties of spices, some of them long forgotten, from across the world, Roellinger is intent on paying the farmers, many of whom are currently struggling, at fair-trade levels which is currently four times higher than existing market prices. Roellinger's story is a humble reminder to us that making money while doing what one loves may not have only one way of doing. That we can all do better than what we are currently doing if we throw in an element of service and create a flavor that's both unifying and yet distinctly different. "We must increase our capacity to embrace what's different until one day it becomes a part of us. Ultimately, the intermixing of aromas, flavors and cultures (as in the spices trade) is what's beautiful about the story of humanity," says Roellinger.

If we reflect on that thought of his, we may find more meaning to our individual pursuit of following our bliss.

Are you taking advantage of the time you have here?

Actually, the choice to live – and not to exist – is a no-brainer if you keep reminding yourself that “you live only once”!

Picture Courtesy: Internet

The latest issue of TIME features an interview with acclaimed American photojournalist Lynsey Addario, 41, who specializes in covering war and champions human rights and the role of women in traditional societies. In 2000, she photographed in Afghanistan under Taliban control. She has since covered conflicts in Afghanistan, Iraq, Darfur, the Congo, and Haiti. She has covered stories throughout the Middle East and Africa. She has photographed for The New York Times, Time, Newsweek, and National Geographic. Addario was one of four New York Times journalists who were missing in Libya from March 16 ~ 21, 2011. The Libyan government released Addario and the other journalists on March 21, 2011. She reported that she was threatened with death and repeatedly groped during her captivity by the Libyan Army. Penguin has recently published Addario’s first book, It’s What I Do – A photographer’s Life of Love and War. TIME asked Addario to explain her unique, albeit risky, career choice – “Is it because you think you have a lot of time left that you can tolerate danger?” And Addario replied: “It is important to take advantage of the time that we each have.”

Her reply is awakening. Addario says it so well – and simply. In fact, it reminds me of what the Buddha has said: “The trouble is you think you have a lot of time.”

And that indeed is the problem with most of us. We go on postponing the Life we want to live by kidding ourselves with our earning-a-living logic: the family has to be provided for, kids have to be schooled, raised and sent to university, retirement has to be planned and saved for … The list of things to do, to prioritize, over living a full Life, is endless. This is why so many of us feel that our lives are incomplete, listless and monotonous. My wife and I have been, since January this year, running an Event Series in Chennai called “Follow Your Bliss” (inspired by Joseph Campbell’s famous thought/quote) which celebrates people who have had the courage to break free from “financially safe and secure” careers to do what they love doing. Almost everyone who attends this Event Series concurs that they are keen to do “something more meaningful” in their lives. But few actually take the first step. One gentleman, in his 50s, who quit his 26-year run with the IT industry last month, told us: “It had to happen. I realized that I had to give up running on the corporate treadmill if I really wanted to get some place else in Life. And I am not getting any younger either, you see.” I am sure you too agree with his view here.

Indeed, Life is a gift. And you should not waste it. The way to use this gift – effectively and efficiently – is to take advantage of the time you have on the planet, doing what you love doing. That’s the only way to live a Life of meaning and happiness! 

Learn to trust Life and go follow your bliss!

Don’t postpone living – go do what you love doing and Life will take care of your bills and responsibilities!  

Yesterday, our neighbor visited us and we spent a good hour chatting about Life. His family has been going through a lot of challenges. His wife has been bed-ridden for over two years now. She’s had several orthopedic challenges with respect to her lower limbs. She’s already been through four surgeries and the prognosis is that she can walk with support only in a few more months. Meanwhile, my neighbor too was felled by a rare disease that paralyzed his muscles, and he had to spend over a month in hospital and six months recovering at home. Now that he’s much better, my neighbor, who’s in his late 50s, told us, “I want to spend the rest of my Life doing what I love doing. This experience has taught us that we must live our lives fully and enjoy every moment. In fact, thanks to my stay at the hospital, I have learned to even love my physical limitations and challenges.”

My neighbor makes a very valid point. Most of us postpone living, hoping that we can “some day” live the Life that we want. The moot question is when is that “some day” going to arrive? The truth is that if you expect that day to arrive in the future it never will – because when you reach a milestone you have set for yourself, a new one will entice you. For instance, if at 20 you decide that you will make a million dollars, by the time you are 30, to secure your finances and then go to do what you love doing, chances are you will either make that million or you won’t. If you don’t, you will want to continue to keep trying and so you will push your “do-what-I-love-doing” deadline to 40. And if you do, you will want to make some more money, to feel more secure – because more the money, more the insecurity! Or finally when you are ready, your family responsibilities will weigh you down – either your parents need looking after or your spouse needs support or your kids need financial assistance. Or simply, after you turn 50, after over 30 years of running the rat race, earning a living, raising a family, meeting targets and working hard, you are just exhausted. You don’t want to take “any risks”. And this is how, sadly, Life gets postponed.

There is no better day than today to start living the Life you want. You can either postpone living and keep suffering work and Life situations that you abhor or you can simply take the plunge and live the Life you want to – doing what you love doing. I talk from experience. Though I decided at age 29 that I will follow my bliss, it wasn’t until I turned 36 that I discovered what gave me joy. But over the last 11 years I have stood my ground – despite the gravity of my financial challenges – choosing to do only what I love doing and where I can create value. In this time, while money has been virtually non-existent, Life has taken care of all that I need. So, from the Life I have and what I have seen, I will always champion that when you know what gives you joy – just go do it. Don’t worry or feel insecure. Know that if you have been created, you will be taken care of and provided for. Learn to trust Life and go follow your bliss!

Life is a limited period offer. The Buddha has famously said: “The trouble is you think you have time”. This is so true. Which is why we naively keep postponing living. It is important that we pause and reflect on our lives from time to time. And no better time to do it than today – this Monday, now! Ask yourself – What  am I running around for? What do I really love doing? And what am I doing about it? Hopefully, your answers will awaken you to a Life of joy and you will go do what you want to do in the time that you still have left. When you let go, and live your Life without postponing it, Life will take care of you in ways in which you can’t even fathom!

Sow the seeds of love and bliss, harvest abundance!

The first step you take is what leads you to the last step.

The seed becomes the tree and also the fruit. So, if the seed is of bitter gourd, you are not going to get tomatoes from it. Unless you discover what you have done wrong, maybe get rid of all the bitter gourd growth, till your garden and sow tomato seeds, you ain't gettin' no tomatoes!

The problem is with the way we have all been brought up. And the problem is with the way we continue to bring up our kids. We have been taught that to be successful, you must be the first in your class, you must compete and vanquish the rest, you must not trust people__neighbors, classmates, even extended family because you 'may hurt yourself or even be cheated'. We have been taught that security comes from money. And so we must only choose vocations where there's money. But the soul demands nourishment from love, joy and bliss as you reach your 40s and beyond. And by the time you start seeking it__which is why you are on this Blog and reading this post!!!__your seed of 'me-firstism and money-over-joy' has grown to become a big, big tree and looks seemingly infallible. This tree will bear only the fruit of 'insecurity and incompleteness'. You are insecure about many aspects of your Life and you know that already! In order to help yourself to the fruit called bliss, you must sow the seed of love – of loving Life and accept it for what it is. You must tend the plant, as it sprouts, with joy. Only then will your soul feel blissful.

The biggest gift that we can give our children__and indeed to all of mankind__is to encourage them to take the right steps, sow the right seeds and lead them to follow their bliss. You don't want them to feel the way you are at your age, do you? If you want them to live intelligently, let them to be successful with and in love, egg them on to immerse themselves in what they simply love doing and you stop worrying about them. When we sow the seeds of love and bliss in our own families, we will harvest abundance. 

To meditate is to immerse yourself in whatever you do

The true meaning of meditation is to immerse yourself totally in whatever you are doing. To just be.

Meditation therefore is immersion. Contrary to popular notion, to meditate you don't need a room, a pre-arranged environment or music or solitude or even quiet. You can immerse yourself in whatever you are doing __ cooking, reading, singing, cleaning, playing golf, gardening, carving fruit, walking....whatever, and you will find yourself meditating. As the Buddha discovered and taught, meditation is not an activity in itself but it is concerned with our alertness while doing any action. Meditation means to add awareness and alertness in our actions. Which is why immersion is a better word to describe the meditative state. For instance, when you are immersed in reading an unputdownable book, you may miss hearing the telephone ring or someone at the door. Surely, this has happened to you more than once in your Life. It would be fair to conclude that at such times you are meditating on or are immersed in something. Now, therefore, a pre-condition for immersion is always joy.

Only when you enjoy something, do you immerse yourself in it. For instance, if you ask a teenager to clean up her room or do the dishes, she's going to be grumpy. But let her read her favorite piece of fiction or listen to her favorite music or allow her uninterrupted access to facebook and you are unlikely to find her unhappy even momentarily. What gives you joy could be anything __ a poem, a dance, music or a painting. It could even be just watching the traffic crawl from your window or feeling the waves crash into you on the beach. Wherever there is joy, chances are you will feel timelessness, a certain oneness with whatever you are experiencing. That oneness state is meditation.

Joseph Campbell (1904~1987), American author and mythologist, famous for his 'Follow Your Bliss' philosophy, says he was inspired greatly by the Hindu Upanishads. His rationale is powerful in the context of our learning today. He declared: "Now, I came to this idea of bliss, because in Sanskrit, which is the great spiritual language of the world, there are three terms that represent the brink, the jumping-off place to the ocean of transcendence: Sat-Chit-Ananda. The word "Sat" means being. "Chit" means consciousness. "Ananda" means bliss or rapture. I thought, "I don't know whether my consciousness is proper consciousness or not; I don't know whether what I know of my being is my proper being or not; but I do know where my rapture is. So let me hang on to rapture, and that will bring me both my consciousness and my being." I think it worked."

So, immerse yourself in what you love, be in a rapturous state always, just being; your eternal meditative threshold will be eventually attained!

Walk the line of lunacy, follow your bliss!

Whatever you believe in, let it take over your Life. Simply be led by your bliss. And then watch the road unfold and doors open for you!

Satyen Das: Picture Courtesy - TOI/Internet

This morning’s Times of India (TOI) had this inspiring story of a rickshaw puller from Kolkata, Satyen Das, 40, who has embarked, this past weekend, on a 2,500-km adventure to Leh, Ladakh. Das will go through Jharkhand, Uttar Pradesh, Punjab and Jammu and Kashmir, before reaching Leh – on his rickety, old cycle-rickshaw. He says it’s his desire to explore the country that drives him. Eight years ago, he kept his word to his wife and son, and took them to Puri in Odisha in his rickshaw. He says that trip opened his eyes, and his heart, and ever since he has been wanting to do a longer, and more arduous, trip. Das makes a living, earning just about Rs.200/- a day, ferrying passengers to and from the Gitanjali Metro station in Naktala, in Kolkata. But when he shared his dream with people around him, everyone got together and soon a sum of Rs.5,000/- was collected helping Das set off on this incredible journey. Members of a local Kolkata club have promised to keep collecting funds for him and have given him an ATM card which will help him draw those funds anywhere on his four-month-long journey. Debashish, the local club official who is raising money for him, told TOI’s Prithvijit Mitra, that Das’ an exceptionally brave adventurer: “He is quiet and unassuming but he has a streak of madness, a penchant for taking risks and exploring the unknown. He is a dreamer.”

I found Das’ story fascinating. A school drop-out and a daily wage earner goes on to follow his bliss and pursue his dream, while many of us struggle with earning-a-living and complain incessantly that we don’t have the Life that we want. I think the critical difference between us and Das is what Debashish has pointed out – we don’t follow the streak of madness within us, so we don’t take the plunge – the risk! To be sure, we are also dreamers, we also have the urge to explore the unknown. But we suppress our urge, and our practical sense of what we think is “secure living” – a fixed income per month, the education of our children and retirement funds being planned – keeps our feet nailed to the ground. So we are risk-averse. And wallow in self-pity that we have been unable to do what we want in Life.

None of us is growing any younger.  As the Persian poet Omar Khayyam (1048 AD ~1131 AD) has said: “The Wine of Life keeps oozing drop by drop; the Leaves of Life keep falling one by one.” So, postponing living, postponing what gives us joy, is hardly an intelligent thing to do. I think the biggest risk in Life is not taking a risk – in not walking the line of lunacy, in not doing what you really want to do. When you don’t follow your bliss, the risk is simply that you may never get to follow it!

No one, but you, can understand your Bliss

It’s your Life, live it your way! Don’t worry about what others want you to do. Only do what makes you happy.

What gives you joy is often seen by others as a foolish choice. And they go on chiding you for it. This is a conundrum that you are faced with all the time. Mostly people who are hugely creative and who have chosen to follow their bliss have to face such sentiments. An aspiring musician is, for instance, always reminded that unless you are a “successful” musician, there’s no money in the field. An artist is forever advised that art does not pay enough or steadily! A wannabe actor is warned of the struggles that await her in the industry which neither remunerates beginners well nor does it respect them. A talented cricketer often has to hear horror stories of how murky the affairs of the game are. So, at every stage, if you want to do something different, you are directed to choose “a stable, paying career” – and though your heart may not be in it, you end up becoming a salaried professional. Those who succumb to such social, peer or family pressures, often times, live intrinsically incomplete lives. Actually, they don’t live. They just earn a living!

Sudarsan Yennamalli

Without doubt, those who choose to walk where their bliss is leading them do encounter hurdles every step of the way. They never have enough money in the initial stages of their career, yet they are so happy with themselves and what they do. I know of an amazing artist named Sudarsan Yennamalli. He’s an outstanding painter, a gifted photographer and a soulful musician. www.sudarsanyennamalli.in At 38, he’s at peace with himself. I saw his works at an exhibition over a year ago. He defines painting as “meditation”, as a “soul-searching” process for himself. I am sure Yennamalli faces his own set of existential challenges. But that he is in bliss is evident in his work – be it in his art or photography or music. They are simply soul-stirring, because, as he reports on his website, they reflect “peace and harmony” – two things that we are always searching for.

All of us have to work our way up our Life’s ladders. There’s no elevator to success really. The difference between those who do what they love doing and those who choose to postpone doing what they love for the sake of “stable, paying careers” is simply this. Stable careers assure you a monthly income to raise and support a family. Unconventional and creative career choices don’t offer you that unmatchable benefit of “financial stability”. Those who postpone living the Life they want to, do so at the risk of not living them at all, or finding that when they are finally ready, they have too little time left to live. And those who embrace what they love from day one, from the day they know what is it that gives them joy, live challenged at a material level alright, but are always anchored in inner peace and joy!

So, it really boils down to what you want from your Life. And only you can decide that. Not your family, not your friends, not society and certainly not the world! Let me tell you a Zen story of some fish and a turtle.

There was a turtle who lived in a lake with a school of fish. Once the turtle went for a walk on dry land. He was away from the lake for a few weeks. When he returned he met some of the fish.

One of them asked him, "Mister turtle, hellooooow! How are you? We have not seen you for a few weeks. Where have you been?”

The turtle replied, "I have been spending some time on dry land."

The fish were a little puzzled and one of them asked, "Up on dry land? What are you talking about? What is this dry land? Is it wet?"

The turtle said "No, it is not."

"Is it cool and refreshing?"

"No, it is not."

"Does it have waves and ripples?" asked a teeny weeny fish.

 "No, it does not have waves and ripples," replied the turtle.

"Can you swim in it?" asked a pretty gold fish.

 "No, you can't," said the turtle.

So the oldest fish in the school said, "It is not wet, it is not cool, there are no waves, you can’t swim in it. So this dry land of yours must be completely non-existent, just an imaginary thing, nothing real at all."

The turtle said, "Well, you fish will never quite understand" . He then swam away from the fish and went for another walk on dry land.

This is how it is in Life too. Only you can understand what gives you joy. And when you do, just follow your bliss. There’s no point in waiting for approval from people who can never quite understand what your bliss is!